The present invention relates generally to insulated devices for slowing temperature loss in heated or cooled beverages and, more particularly, to insulated jackets of the type which fit about a beverage container, especially a single-serving container such as a convention aluminum beverage can.
Conventionally, beverages of all types, ranging from soft drinks to fruit juices to beer, are packaged for consumption in single-serving containers of various sorts. Because of ease of manufacture and the ability to recycle and reuse the constituent materials, aluminum and various moldable thermoplastic materials are most commonly used for such beverage containers, with aluminum cans of a twelve-ounce size being the most common form and size of such beverage containers.
While such beverage containers offer many advantages, including recyclability as already mentioned, non-breakability, and low relative weight, one of the disadvantages is that the relative low weight and thin-wall construction of such containers provides little resistance against heat transfer to or from the beverage within the container. Hence, chilled beverages, in particular, tend to rapidly gain temperature once the beverage container is taken from a chilled environment, e.g., a refrigerator, and opened for consumption.
To address this problem, a considerable number and variety of different forms of insulated devices for jacketing beveraged cans have been developed over recent years to act as holders for beverage cans while being consumed, the insulative character of such devices acting to minimize heat transfer from the warmer ambient atmosphere to the chilled beverage within the container. One popular form of such devices is made of foamed synthetic thermoplastic material commonly called foam rubber, formed as a cylindrical jacket dimensioned to closely encircle a standard twelve-ounce beverage can. Such devices typically also include a circular foam rubber bottom wall to provide additional insulative properties. Other similar cylindrical jacket devices are made in substantially the same configuration of relatively hard inflexible dual-walled plastic material within which is contained an insulating material.
While these devices function well for their intended purpose, they suffer the disadvantage of being relatively bulky and inconvenient to carry when not in use, since such devices cannot be folded, collapsed or otherwise placed within normal-sized pockets in typical clothing articles. A more recent form of insulated beverage container jacket is made of a relatively thin-walled synthetic foam rubber material (typically of a thickness of about one-eighth inch) covered on each face by a textile fabric laminated or otherwise bonded to the synthetic foam rubber. Such jackets are made from a single piece of flat fabric-surfaced foam rubber material cut as a blank in the shape of two rectangles spaced endwise from one another by an intervening circular web of the same material, the blank being fabricated into the jacketing device by sewing or otherwise affixing together the respective side margins of the two rectangular portions whereby the sewn rectangular portions form an annulus of the material formable into a cylindrical shape to fit about a beverage can with the connecting circular web in turn forming an insulative bottom wall to the jacket.
One of the advantages of this form of insulating beverage jacket is that, when not in use, the opposite rectangular wall portions tend to reassume their original flattened configuration, whereby the device can be more readily carried in the pocket of an article of clothing. However, due to the manner of construction described above, the circular connecting web of the device naturally tends to project away from the rectangular sidewalls when the device is not in use, thereby increasing the overall outer dimensions of the device which detracts from the ease of placing the device into a pocket.